Until recently, a thin film formed on the surface of a substrate needed to have superior thickness uniformity.
To form such a thin film with superior thickness uniformity, a technique for sputtering while spinning and revolving a substrate opposed to a target is commonly used (PLT1).
Another method adopts a so-called oblique rotation sputtering in which sputtering is performed while a target is obliquely tilted with respect to the surface of a substrate and the substrate is rotated (PLT2).
Also, to analyze various kinds of characteristics of a thin film formed on the surface of a substrate, one technique performs substrate surface observation and ultimate analysis by irradiating a substrate with an electron beam or a monochromatic X-ray beam, and detecting signals such as secondary electrons or characteristic X-rays generated by the substrate upon this irradiation.
In this case, to position the substrate analysis position at the beam irradiation position, it is a common practice to place a substrate on a stage including x and y actuators which independently move in the x and y directions, respectively, and move the substrate to the beam irradiation position (PLT3, PLT4, and PLT5).    PLT1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 06-256940    PLT2: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-265263    PLT3: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 06-213841    PLT4: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 06-325717    PLT5: Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 08-220007